I Don't Deserve You
by Trixie-Baggins
Summary: "Katniss will pick the one person she can't survive without" was what Peeta said. But who was that? This is Katniss' memoir looking back on her relationship with both Peeta and Gale. Based on the song "Don't Deserve You" by Plumb.


_**YOU'RE THE FIRST FACE THAT I SEE**_

_I rouse myself from a nightmare-free sleep and free myself from the warm embrace that is Peeta. He's already awake and stirs when I do. His smile lights up the room, even more than the morning sun does, and I can't help but think of him as my guardian angel of sleep- protecting me from the demons that are nightmares._

_**AND THE LAST THING I THINK ABOUT**_

_I go to sleep in Peeta's arms, but my thoughts are on Gale. On his hunting trips. On his job in the mines. On his family. On his promise to take care of my family. Peeta's already asleep, and I smile as thoughts of Gale and the District 12 woods slowly settle me in the land of dreams._

_**YOU'RE THE REASON THAT I'M ALIVE**_

_He joined up with the pack of Careers. He sustained multiple sting wounds from the tracker jackers and then fought Cato. For what? All to save me. But even before that, before the Capitol, even before the reaping, he saved me, and he gave me something even more important than life itself- he gave me the one thing I need to survive- what I needed to keep my family alive. He gave me hope. He gave me the will to live._

_**YOU'RE WHAT I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT**_

_I want to run. To take our families, get out of here, and never come back. Live in the woods, protect them from the Capitol. The plan doesn't go over so well with Gale, and we're not exactly on the best of terms. Things between us haven't been the same since I got back from The Hunger Games. Whatever animosity, whatever distance disappears, though, when I step in and receive the lash across my face to protect him, when I sit in my kitchen, holding his hand, stroking his hair, willing him to live. For his family's sake. For mine._

_**YOU NEVER GIVE UP WHEN I'M FALLING APART, YOUR ARMS ARE ALWAYS OPEN WIDE**_

_I wake up, screaming. The newest nightmare is still vivid in my memory as I wander the train car searching for something or someone to alleviate the pain. I'm headed back to the hellish nightmares, and this time there is no escape. I find Peeta, still up. His arms part when he sees me, and I rush to them. He __holds me, and I let him, getting lost in the warmth of the embrace, in the closeness of another person, in the intimacy of this moment._

_**AND YOU'RE QUICK TO FORGIVE WHEN I MAKE A MISTAKE, YOU LOVE ME IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE**_

_I hurt him when I got home, with my words. I hurt him in the arena with my actions. When I look into his eyes, there's a cold hatred for me, and an utter loathing of Peeta. But under all that, there's the bond we shared as kids. He loves me, he always has. The bond and love we grew up with is unbreakable. I now see that no matter what I do, he always will love me._

_**I DON'T DESERVE YOUR LOVE, BUT YOU GIVE IT TO ME AN**__**YWAY**_

_When we first rode into the seventy-fourth Hunger Games, I was fully prepared to kill Peeta in order to make my promise to Prim come true. I did nothing to save him after he saved me, until they announced that there could be two victors. Even then, it was so I could get back to District 2 and still have a life. Peeta's actions from the beginning were fueled by love. I wish I could say the same for me, but I can't._

_**CAN'T GET ENOUGH, YOU'RE EVERYTHING I NEED**_

_He promised to stop in and see that Prim and my mother were alright while I was gone. It's what I needed, someone to look out for my family. And then later, he was just what I needed. He was my hunting partner. The only person in all of District 13 that I could trust to have my back._

_**AND WHEN I WALK AWAY, YOU TAKE OFF RUNNING AND COME RIGHT AFTER ME**_

_After we got home, I drifted away from my friends and family. Yet through it all, through thick and thin, Peeta had always been there for me. When I left that train that would take us to the Quarter Quell after yelling at Effie, it wasn't Haymitch that followed me out. It wasn't Effie, or anyone else. No, it was him._

_**YOU'RE THE LIGHT INSIDE MY MIND, YOU GIVE ME REASONS TO KEEP TRYING**_

_My thoughts drift back to Peeta's District symbol- the locket. In it were pictures of my mother, Prim and Gale. They were happy. It was the reason that Peeta gave me to keep living. For them. For __him._

_**YOU GIVE ME MORE THAN I COULD DREAM, AND YOU BRING ME TO MY KNEES**_

_I remember being on the rooftop with Peeta. It was one of the few times during the Games that I felt truly happy and safe. I remember that he looked at me and wished that he could've frozen that moment and lived in it forever. Is that what this is? The beginning of forever?_

_**YOUR HEART IS GOLD, AND HOW AM I THE ONE THAT YOU'VE CHOSEN TO LOVE**_

"_We want the families of the tributes to have one month of our earnings each year for the rest of our lives." I can still hear Peeta's words from District 11. He was so generous, so selfless. He was the type of person that would take a beating so he could give bread to a starving girl he barely even knew._

_**I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE RIGHT NEXT TO ME, AFTER ALL THAT I'VE DONE**_

_I disobeyed a direct order from the President. I dragged innocent people with me, and got them killed. And yet here was Gale, backing me up, supporting my decisions. For an instant we were back in the woods of District 12, enjoying the precious time we had to share._

My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am the Girl on Fire. The read so far hasn't been easy, and neither will be the one in front of us, but as I watch my two children play, and as the husband I can't live without comes home from work, I know it was worth it. Not only for me, but for every other person who now thinks of this as the normal way of living. For those who remember that children didn't used to have the time or energy to play. Who know what the Reapings were, and what they did to families.


End file.
